Garcia surrogates push back against Rodriguez, Alvarado

From the inbox this morning (the address is eastendleaders@gmail.com, which is meant to camouflage the real source). If you're scoring, it's in response to CM James Rodriguez last week.

As East End Community Leaders, we have come together to show that we have always been opposed to an overpass during the leadership of the old METRO in 2008.

The documents linked to this statement show evidence that Council Member Rodriguez is misleading voters in his recent January 8, 2013 statement trying to defend State Representative’s Carol Alvarado’s conflict of interest as a paid consultant (attached) to the old METRO leadership. State Representative Alvarado was being paid by the old METRO leadership to advocate for an overpass at Harrisburg while her constituents in the east end opposed it.

 In January of 2009, METRO sent a letter to CM Rodriguez stating that a commitment was made by Council Member Rodriguez to build an overpass.

We have 8 different letters from East End civic groups and business leaders written in December 2008 and January of 2009 showing that the residents and businesses of the east end support an underpass rather than an overpass. While Council Member Rodriguez was committed to an overpass, State Representative Alvarado was employed by METRO as a consultant; therefore disappointing her constituents for not advocating an underpass.

Commissioner Sylvia Garcia has stood with the merchants and civic leaders in the east end saying she would join our rallying shout “it’s not over, until it is under.”

We want to acknowledge Mayor Annise Parker’s leadership for approving the underpass and the new METRO, and numerous council members who were also instrumental in securing the required funding for the underpass in 2011.

As active East End Community Leaders, we are continuously seeking transparency, honesty, and integrity from our elected officials. 

Emphasis on the words "underpass" and "overpass" in the above is theirs. No 'East End Leader' signed this letter, so unless someone(s) claims it, I'll call it as belonging to the Garcia campaign.

Is this a big deal to the residents of SD-6? I will admit that I just don't see how pivotal this spat is in the grand scheme. Bu then I'm not a resident of the district.

Anyone want to weigh in on this? Anyone not connected to a campaign, that is; just a voter in SD-6 with some knowledge of the issue. Help me understand why this disagreement is so pivotal now.

Stace had a report earlier today on the financials -- who's got it and how they spent it. The most interesting development in that disclosure is how Alvarado seems to be attracting the Republican money. Stace also has the vote total at about 3,400 (mail and in-person) as of yesterday. That's about 12% or so of Mark Jones' projection.

There have been reasonably good turnouts at the various community fora that have been held, but I have to be candid; I simply don't have any idea what to think about how this race will go at this point. If Garcia and Alvarado emerge as the top two (as both Kuffner and Jones have forecast), are they going to keep quarreling about underpass/overpass in the runoff?

Like there aren't more pressing issues to talk about?

One thing seems clear: the race certainly is on target for the most expensive dollar-per-vote tally witnessed in recent times.

Update: More on the money from Joe Holley. Because, you know, that's all that matters. Far be it from Charles to let anybody outdo him in this regard, however.

It's as if they don't really understand what the problem is. Truthfully... I think they do; they just don't want to address it. Thank goodness some people do.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance is digging in for another long legislative session as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff has interviews with SD06 special election candidates Sylvia Garcia and Carol Alvarado.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is just appalled that the whole story isn't addressed: Of Course It’s Not Just Guns. Cut taxes, create a structural deficit, cut education and the safety net which results in a surplus. Rinse and repeat.

WCNews at Eye on Williamson wants to make sure everyone hasn't forgotten the past. Do you remember how we got here?

As early voting began, Brains and Eggs had the most comprehensive coverage of the special election to replace the late Mario Gallegos in the Texas Senate. A post on the protest at TransCanada, two posts on Sylvia Garcia's aggressive campaign against Carol Alvarado, a post on the candidate who boycotted one of the debates, and a post critical of the exceptionally lame media coverage of the election highlighted a busy week.

Over at Texas Kaos, lightseeker gives you the skivvy on the educational funding issue, including the latest lamebrain schemes from our Republican leaders. Check it out: Texas Education - The Same Old Fools In Charge Part 2.

Neil at Texas Liberal posted that a grave with a view of traffic would be a fitting end to an urban Houston life.  

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme wants you to know that Rick Perry has doubled down on corporate greed and Tea Party crazy.

Garcia hits Alvarado again and more SD-6

From the Sylvia Garcia campaign, and in my e-mail inbox yesterday morning, with much of the campaign promotion verbiage edited...

One of our opponents in this race, Carol Alvarado, is proudly touting the endorsement and support of Stand for Children, an education advocacy group that supports school voucher programs. This group has earned a reputation for working against the interests of public school teachers across the nation.

Republicans like Sen. Dan Patrick and Gov. Rick Perry have made it clear that they will work to push through school voucher legislation during Session. Sylvia Garcia strongly believes in fully funding our public schools, not using those dollars to help wealthy private schools take money away from our children. 

I should think this charge would be a legitimate concern for SD-6 voters, especially those who are teachers and parents of public school students. Follow the links in the above and you will see why.  I have to say I am surprised that Alvarado -- or any Democrat, for that matter -- would align herself with the allies of Dan Patrick and vouchers.

(And I can't help but think about how nasty a possible runoff between Garcia and Alvarado is going to get.)

I waited until now to post this, thinking the Alvarado campaign would have a reaction. So far, nothing I can find. Marc Campos -- no update since Friday morning -- is exercising a significant amount of caution, limiting much of his babble to the Baseball Hall of Fame developments at the end of the business week. Campaigns obviously don't go dark on the weekends in the middle of early voting, so perhaps they're formulating a response.

If one shows up, I'll amend this post with it. Update (1/14): This morning's post has this...

Carol Alvarado’s opponent sent out another negative mailer Saturday.  That’s three negative mailers in six days.  We expect more.

And that's it.

Elsewhere, Stace's Dos Centavos has a good report on the NHPO candidate forum, also yesterday morning. No mention of the issue by any of the candidates, though. I received the p.r. referenced above about 10 a.m., so the absence of topic discussion may have more to do with that timing than anything else.

And Charles Kuffner has a few very good questions for Maria Selva.

Sunday Funnies

"No one's taking away all the guns. But now I get it... now I see what's happening. So this is what it is: their paranoid fear of a 'possible' dystopic future prevents us from addressing our actual dystopic present. We can't even begin to address 30,000 gun deaths that are actually, in reality, happening in this country every year because a few of us must remain vigilant against the rise of Imaginary Hitler." 

-- Jon Stewart

"Chuck Hagel is the new Secretary of Defense nominee. They're saying that he may be reluctant to send troops into a war zone needlessly. What kind of a nutjob is this guy?"

--David Letterman

"Folks, once Jack Lew becomes Secretary of the Treasury, this pubic hair masquerading as an autograph will appear on all our money, making our currency a laughingstock! Our money should have nothing ridiculous on it… just old men in wigs and pyramids with eyes." 

-- Stephen Colbert

"Chris Christie lashed out at Congress for doing nothing for the victims of Hurricane Sandy. But in their defense Congress says, 'Hey, we don't do anything for anybody.'" 

-- Jay Leno

Local media goes to work reporting on SD-6

A surprisingly good update on the latest here, from Joe Holley:

Three days into early voting, the race to replace the late state Sen. Mario Gallegos continues to heat up, as does the balloting.

The first large batch of mail-in ballots was returned Friday, outpacing voters who visited the polls in person. Since early voting began, 1,561 ballots have been cast, two thirds of them in person. More votes were recorded Friday, 805, than in the two preceding days, 756.

I'll be helping the county clerk count those mail ballots as soon as the early voting period concludes on January 22. Even Mark Jones at Rice has stepped up his game...

Rice University political scientist Mark Jones describes the relatively late date as "a strategic delay" on the part of Gov. Rick Perry and his fellow Republicans, who realize that the likely winner will be one of the Democratic candidates.

"Under the Senate's two-thirds rule, until the new SD-6 senator arrives, the Republicans need to convince only one Democrat to vote with them to pass legislation, whereas once Alvarado or Garcia arrives in Austin, they will need two," he said in an email.

On most legislation the difference is irrelevant, Jones said, but not on such controversial issues as the fetal pain bill, for example.

"With only 30 senators, the Republicans will need to tailor the final legislation to obtain the backing of only one of the handful of pro-life Democrats, not two of them," he said. "The result will, quite possibly, be legislation that is closer to the Republican ideal than would have been the case if the support of both was required."

For their part,  ABC-13 had this.



Reporter Tom Abrahams mentions "six candidates" at yesterday's EECoC luncheon forum, so he just concentrated on the ones who were in the room. I don't know where Susan Delgado was, but I do know where Maria Selva was.

This is stereotypical corporate media coverage. Ignore the Green candidates (unless they get arrested, that is.) All of the local media reported essentially the same thing -- nothing -- when presidential candidate Jill Stein came to Houston last October.

Sadly, this weak effort at journalism by KTRK soundly defeated all of their electronic competition: KHOU, which last covered the race on November 12; KPRC, televising a general overview at the start of early voting, and Fox 26, whose most recent report was a month ago.

This is nothing more than the politicians and the media -- and the corporations and the environment -- that we have earned, by our actions or lack thereof. Unless we are willing to change the way we do things. Which includes how and what we think, of course.

That's going to be a long, hard slog at the rate we're going. Doesn't mean we shouldn't make the effort, though.

Update: Here's the two-hour "Conversations with the Candidates" video interviews conducted by the League of Women Voters (which includes every one except Delgado).

SD-6 candidate boycotts TransCanada-sponsored debate

The press release, this afternoon:

Candidate boycotts debate sponsored by TransCanada

Inappropriate influence by international firm hazardous to Houston


January 11, 2013, Houston, TX

Maria Selva, the Green Party candidate in the special election for TX Senate District 6, will boycott the debate held by the Houston East End Chamber of Commerce today because it was sponsored by TransCanada, the company constructing the Keystone XL pipeline. The controversial pipeline will, upon completion, transport tar sands oil from Canada for refining at Gulf Coast refineries.

"Tar sands refining will increase toxic air pollution along the Houston Ship Channel, negatively impacting the health of the people in District 6. The whole tar sands operation from mining to refining drastically increases carbon dioxide emissions which contribute to global warming and climate change, and is at odds with the push for clean, safe energy that is one of the principal goals of my campaign," Selva said.

"This controversial firm [TransCanada] that Houstonians and Texans have been fighting to keep out of the state should not have inappropriate influence over the candidates by sponsoring a debate among candidates who would make decisions affecting it," said Selva.

"Candidates who seek to represent the citizens of Texas Senate district 6 should not be attending events sponsored by corporations that will poison the air of the people they claim to want to represent. We need to keep money out of politics, and that starts with removing money and inappropriate influence from the decision-making process of citizens."


Maria Selva
TX Senate 6 Candidate

http://MariaSelva4TXSenate.NationBuilder.com
facebook.com/vote4maria
twitter.com/vote4MariaSelva
vote.4.maria.selva@hotmail.com

It's a great place to begin the process, at the local level, of getting the corporations and their money out of our political system. When every evaluation of a political candidate's viability starts and ends with how much money they have raised, you know the system is broken.

The system needs fixing.

More Austin/Washington transit

As is often the case during the first week of the legislative session, there's too much going on for me to cover in any depth, so I'll just dump the links that I've been collecting and let you draw your own conclusions. (Well, mostly.)

Hutchison mentioned for vacant Transportation Secretary position: Ludicrous at face value. Kay Bailey resigned from the Senate in order to return to Texas, be with her children, and earn speaking fees while she decides what to do next. She is NOT going to turn around and go back to DC and work in the Obama administration. FWIW I think that job is likely to go to Jennifer Granholm, who has some time on her hands now that Current has been sold to al-Jazeera.

Ron Kirk is also leaving the Obama administration. I just hope he has a Senate seat -- or perhaps the top job in Austin -- in his 2014 sights.

Greg Abbott is telling donors he's running for governor. This I believe. Even if "run" is the wrong verb to use. Update: Via Kuff, Paul Burka has some deep thoughts on this.

Folks, if we don't stop this guy, he'll wind up in the White House not so many years from now.

Twenty state parks may have to close next year due to funding cuts. Abominable.

Worse than abominable: Rick Perry’s Refusal to Expand Texas’ Medicaid Program Could Result In Thousands of Deaths.

Strong opposition stands in front of Dan Patrick's school vouchers legislative effort: I don't think the opposition is all that strong. The Republicans have the numbers in both chambers. This is probably going to happen. However...

Senate keeps two-thirds rule and eliminates exceptions.

Following a closed-door meeting, senators with little debate agreed 27-0 to leave in place the so-called “two-thirds rule” that allows 11 of the 31 senators to block a bill from coming up for debate. But they voted to remove a provision added four years ago that allows for “special exceptions” — a change made by Republicans that allowed them to debate a voter-identification bill that Democrats had been blocking.

State Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, a leading proponent of dropping the rule, said it “cuts off our ability to have debate” on issues that are important to Texas — sometimes because senators don’t want to have to cast a public vote that some constituents or interest groups might not like.

He suggested that a more robust and open debate of state issues would result from dropping the rule, which has been in effect for decades. Most senators have said privately they believe the rule gives them more clout — that one vote can make a difference in whether a bill can be considered by the full Senate.

Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, championed the rule as “a long tradition that has served this body well” in requiring consensus-building before bills come up for a vote. “It distinguishes us from other bodies,” he said.

Sen. Kevin Eltife, R-Tyler, the author of Wednesday’s resolution and chairman of the Senate Administration Committee, said most senators for months have not supported dropping the rule, even though a behind-the-scenes drumbeat for the change has continued in recent weeks.

“It’s now back to the way it read before 2009. There are no special exceptions,” Eltife said.

Since I mucked up that post with bad math, this development makes me very happy despite the strengthening of Dewhurst's hand, mostly because it weakens Patrick's.

That's why they call it the lesser of two evils.

Update: EOW has a good collection of things I did not mention above, including this.